C H A N G E S .

Ryan + I. Not letting chaos at the moment in our life distract us from living.

this is important one.

Being the minority, by FAR (less than 1%), has been an incredible experience. It’s eye-opening on so many levels. It’s truly amazing what is has done for our mindsets.

Living here thru all the good and the bad, I can confidently say I am definitely not the same person I was 2 years ago. I think it would be impossible to NOT change after all of our experiences. Good and bad.

PATIENCE:

Being here for 2 years has brought a lot of changes to the both of us. I think back to the day where I wanted to renovate our kitchen in Sagamore Beach, but I knew I wasn’t ready to have my kitchen ripped apart for 2 months, I was just too impatient. The thought of this level of  impatience makes me laugh. Living here, I have grown so much patience, we both have. If we decide to renovate the kitchen someday, I don’t care if it’s ripped apart for a year; it wouldn’t phase me at all.

….I’ll always think back to wanting toss pillows for our sofas and it took nearly 2 months to have them made. Simple, basic pillows.... 2 months!!! You would think I was asking them to solve quantum physics.

PRIVACY:

I have learned to keep a lot of our life happenings private. I went from posting on SM nearly every day, to barely posting at all. This was not out of spite, but rather we were just processing a lot of heavy traumatic events, sometimes multiple fires at once and it was a lot for us to take in. We tried our very best to hold it together & make the right decision. We discussed sharing some things with friends and family, but decided against it. Sometimes we felt helpless. I would fall into a dark place at times and it took a ton of self motivation to keep my mind in the right place....

I just had to remind myself constantly:

“what you focus on, you create more of.”

It was friggen hard at times to ignore the dozen little chaotic fires going on at the same time, to try to stay calm & focus on the good.

Possibly being scammed out of a house that will never finish or never receive the title to because the builder was MIA? Our entire life savings at risk….We would decide to take a trip to Zimbabwe, or Namibia, or everywhere to get our mind off our worries.

Maybe it sounds crazy or even irresponsible. But, either we let these things eat us alive or we continued on and did more of what we loved, which would remind us of why we came here. I think these trips is what got us thru a lot of the darkest of times. Trust me, at times we were more than just freaking the fuck out... I experienced anxiety for the very first time in my life. this taught me to just let go of things completely out of our control; it will all work out the way it is supposed to.

LESS SOCIAL MEDIA / EVEN MORE PRIVACY:

I remember sharing awesome highlights of our time and seeing friends and family watch all of our stories, but yet never showed support by a simple like. I’ll be honest, it hurt at the time. But Before I knew it, I wasn’t checking FB much. This no longer mattered to me who wasn’t supporting us, who was cheering us on. I love our life, we have a pretty damn interesting one so far. And that is all that truly matters.

Becoming private has only helped us thru these chapters. I became a fragile emotional mess, so it was only best to keep it to ourselves. Until now when I feel it is finally ok for me to write about it all. For me. I don’t care if anyone ever reads these. Someday I’ll look back and be happy I took the time to write. It's pretty therapeutic.

I have learned along the way, that most people don’t not go for what they truly want in life. Life passes them by and when they see someone else truly going for it in life, sometimes this strikes a chord, sparks a level of jealousy within them. So they secretly are wishing for you to fail, instead of cheering you on. NOW, This may not be a malicious thought, but perhaps to justify in their own minds an excuse for not going for their own dreams. It’s easy to cheer for a friend when they are down and depressed, you feel heroic boosting them up. But I think more is said for those who are cheering their friends that are kicking ass in life.

This brings me back to my point. I didn’t want to share any crisis we were experiencing that life was throwing as us to justify to these people, “See! I knew they shouldn’t have gone! Ha!” Because I always knew, if we didn’t quit, if we just hung on a bit more, we’d come out on top. And I’d rather be an example of achievement than to be an example of a quitter & to feed someones poor excuse as to why they shouldn’t “go for it” in their own life.  I’d rather inspire someone to truly go for it in life rather than give someone an excuse not to.

"You cannot fail, unless you quit."

LETTING GO OF WHAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL/ TRUST THE PROCESS:

This move was a huge risk. God just decided to throw in a ton of challenges and obstacles to see how bad we really wanted it. Maybe we had to go thru all of these challenges to prep us for everything we asked for. What if we were only one step away from everything we asked for? We discussed numerous times about throwing in the towel. but we never did. and I am so so thankful for that.

Sometimes life brings you on a journey you didn’t even know you needed.

I will conclude with this: Learning to trust that Everything always works out the way it is supposed to. We came out on top in the end. I kept saying to Ryan repeatedly on our beach walks, “I can’t help but ask, what was this all for? I can’t imagine taking such a huge risk in life and to only come up empty handed.” Ryan would always reassure me, “I don’t think we will know til the very end.”

He was right.

CHANGES IN FRIENDSHIPS:

I knew I would lose touch with some people after moving. It's part of life. Some were a bit more surprising than others and keeping a lot of this shit to ourselves, I became more selective who I shared anything with. I get it, the #1 thing people like to talk about is themselves... I have become much more mindful of this. I would have friends half-heartedly reach out to just try to find out some gossip, or fill me in on their gossip, but not even take a moment to ask how I was doing. Or what was new. In fact, I think reading these blogs... if they even do, it will be news to them about a lot of this. I am not hurt at all, I think I just have more of an understanding about who my real friends are. and who matters. I even took the liberty in cutting some people off altogether; I think the "me" before this move; I would find myself putting peoples feelings before what was good for me. I didn't want to hurt their feelings or insult them, so I'd take what was less than I deserved. No hard feelings, I want to see them eat, I just don't care for them sitting at my table anymore.

CHANGING OUR MINDSET:

instead of focusing on the chaos or the negativity, holding on to grudges, I would wait til I was in a calm state of mind and really try to focus on what we were taking away from the situation. what did we learn from it? what we can do different next time? What was the universe trying to get us to see?

CHANGES IN RYAN:

I watched Ryan transform from the nicest guy who people here mistaken for a pushover and took advantage of him and broke his/our trust, to one of the stronger, more firm individuals I now know. I loved watching this transformation., he is very firm in his decisions & I can see he hides his heart on his sleeve now. (He is still the nicest guy, but he’s just a lot more assertive and firm with people.)

Ryan has always seemed to put others feelings first, even at his own expense. Instead of being uncomfortable by saying "no", he would cave and give in just to spare himself the brief moment of discomfort. Now, he is firm, the soft side that was a weakness, has calloused over. Not an once of discomfort saying no, if anything, you hear annoyance in his tone.

I watched Ryan go from a fairly closed minded individual, to much more open minded. He would prejudge people (which most Americans do) but then he would get to know them and end up loving them. Some of his favorite people here on island were people he did not like at first. I love this.

I watched Ryan go from this quiet, stoic individual to this magnetic, confident individual. I fall more in love with him every day.

CHANGES IN US AS A COUPLE:

I always thought we were a close couple. But then he dragged me to an African island to face some of life’s biggest challenges yet and somehow we grew so much closer I look back to the time before we moved here and what a difference a new world would make. It brought both of us to our knees at times... Now I look back and wonder if we would've drifted apart in life in America over decades if we hadnt left??

I fully understand that some of the challenges we have been thru would’ve torn most partners apart. Never once did we go in different directions. I cannot imagine life without him.

One thing I know for sure, we both realize there is so much more to life than working constantly. We are now living A life well lived. We appreciate friends, family holidays and traditions, all the things we have missed terribly.

CONFIDENCE:

Lastly, we can handle anything life throws at us. Time here with our challenges has boosted our confidence 10x. I feel like we are coming back as super heroes.

Thank you Africa, some of our heaviest life lessons. We love you.